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According to the ABET Calendar, Adult Learners' Week and
International Literacy Day are key events and activities in our
calendar. These are activities that seek to empower our people,
thereby helping in pushing back the frontiers of poverty. It is
therefore an honour for me to be part of the ABET constituency in
celebrating this august occasion. It has come to my attention that
this is the eleventh joint literacy campaign and advocacy strategy
between the Department of Education and ABET stakeholders. Let me
seize this opportunity and congratulate the MABET Forum for
remaining committed to the spirit of Tirisano and unreservedly
championing the plight of the previously disadvantaged.

Ladies and gentlemen, Adult Basic Education is one of the great
challenges that faced the new dispensation in 1994. This challenge
was posed by alarming illiteracy levels. This condition was further
compounded by the fragmented ABET sector characterised by the
following:
- a sector with service providers that could not relate to one
another in order to agree on the quality of education
- a sector that did not have systems and structures
- a sector that did not have a legal framework
- a sector with a profile that was at the lowest ebb and relegated
to a status of a stepchild.

Speaking to you on the eve of the tenth anniversary of our
democracy, I have the obligation to review what has been achieved
by the present government in redressing the imbalances that I have
alluded to. The Constitution as the supreme law of the country in
chapter 2 under the Bill of Rights subsection 3, states;

"Every citizen of the country has a right to education including
Adult Basic Education".

Right from the onset, the government of the day committed itself to
the betterment of the lives of many of our communities. The
government in its mission to transform the lives of our people
undertook to create an enabling environment for us to work as a
collective. The Department of Education has coordinated eleven
campaigns over the past 5 years which served to bring together the
role-players in ABET and harness the existing resources. These
campaigns have played a major role in recruiting adult learners
from various angles of our province as well as raising the profile
of ABET. The impact of these campaigns is portrayed by the steadily
growing numbers of learners accessing ABET programmes in our
centres.

In these programmes our learners are empowered with reading and
writing skills which are equipping them for a meaningful
participation in building and shaping the economy of this
country.

Also very important for the government is the scourge of poverty. I
am happy to announce that the plight of poverty is being tackled
head-on by implementing Agricultural and Small, Medium and Micro
Enterprises projects in the Presidential Nodal Points.

In the year 2000, the ABET Act Number 52/2000 was promulgated to
provide a legal framework on which to bargain for the sector and
regulate the operation of adult education centres, unlike in the
past when ABET was at the mercy of individuals who did not have the
welfare of our communities at heart. According to the ABET Act, our
adult learners are expected to enjoy the support of the communities
through Centre Governing Bodies.

Today Adult Education has national standards that ensure quality
programmes from all service providers in order to benefit our
learners and facilitate the portability of their qualifications.
This is possible because as the Department of Education we have
succeeded in putting assessment systems in place. From the year
2001 our adult learners have participated in the National
Qualifications Framework Level One assessment. I am happy to
announce that on the 2nd of September 2003 the first General
Education and Training Certificate was issued by the National
Minister Professor Kader Asmal to our fellow adult learners in
Pollsmoor prison. It is worth noting that ABET has been the pioneer
of the GET certificate. This is indeed a milestone for a sector
that was totally neglected in the past. This gesture has ushered in
a new era in the history of ABET Qualifications and bear testimony
to the Freedom Charter educational clause which says:

"THE DOORS OF LEARNING SHALL BE OPEN TO ALL"

The year 2003 gave birth to an ABET Provincial Calendar different
from the mainstream as a means to extend tuition time for adult
learners. The achievements that have been registered could be
attributed to the Multi Year Implementation Plan that was endorsed
by HEDCOM in 1998 as an implementation policy over four years for
the ABET sector. One of the objectives of the Multi Year
Implementation Plan was to accelerate access to ABET programmes.
From 1998 to 2001, the statistics are as follows:

For the duration of the plan, a total of 88 933 learners have
participated in ABET programmes offered in our Adult Public
Centres. Reporting beyond the plan, this department has provided
education to 135 216 adult learners since its inception.

Programme Directors; let me take this opportunity to allay the
fears of our educators with regards to their conditions of service.
There are discussions currently underway with the Education and
Labour Relations Council that seek to improve the conditions of
service. We are expecting a positive outcome from this interaction
as the continued absence of these conditions of service renders the
sector unstable.

The importance of adult education cannot be over emphasized if we
are to succeed socially, politically and economically as a
nation.

This will assist our people in becoming active participants in our
democracy.

The HIV/AIDS plan which is the product of the HIV/AIDS conference
for the ABET sector will vigorously unfold in due course. I want to
urge all parties concerned to show patriotism by supporting this
initiative.

In conclusion, I would like to congratulate the ABET Sector for
having reached such heights with a makeshift staff. May this sector
succeed in its quest to eradicate illiteracy and poverty.